Red Keep
The Red Keep is a castle on Aegon's Hill in King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms. The Red Keep contains the Iron Throne and is the home of the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Layout The Red Keep is made of pale red stone and overlooks the mouth of the Blackwater Rush. The Red Keep has seven massive drum-towers crowned with iron ramparts. The castle is smaller than Winterfell and is patrolled by gold cloaks. Much of the Red Keep is connected underground. Massive curtain walls surround the castle, with nests and crenelations for archers. Thick stone parapets, some four feet high, protect the outer edge of the wall ramparts, where the heads of traitors are traditionally placed on iron spikes between the crenels at the gatehouse. The walls have great bronze gates and portcullises, with narrow postern doors nearby. The castle also has great cornerforts. The immense barbican has a cobbled square in front of it. Behind the walls are small inner yards, vaulted halls, covered bridges, barracks of the City Watch of King's Landing, dungeons, granaries, kennels, and stables. The Red Keep has serpentine steps which can be strenuous to climb. Maegor's Holdfast, the small council chambers, the Tower of the Hand, the lower bailey, a small sunken courtyard, and the black cells are located below the steps. The Great Hall with the throne room is found above the steps, and the outer yard or ward is found near the main gate. Also above the steps are the godswood, the river walk, the small kitchen, and the pig yard. The royal sept and the Maidenvault are located above the serpentine steps as well. Relics of the Targaryen dynasty, such as dusty suits of black armor, sit in some corridors. Doors are made of oak banded with black iron. Sweet-smelling rushes can be spread on floors. The Red Keep is full of cats, including those kept as pets as well as strays, like a black tomcat. Great Hall The Great Hall contains the throne room of the king. The Iron Throne sits on a raised iron dais with high and narrow steps. A long carpet stretches from the throne to the hall's great oak-and-bronze doors. The cavernous Great Hall can feast a thousand people. The hall is oriented north to south, with high, narrow windows on the eastern and western walls. Skulls of the Targaryen dragons once adorned the walls, but King Robert I Baratheon had them moved to a cellar and replaced with hunting tapestries at the beginning of his reign. Located behind the Iron Throne is the king's door, a private exit. The second-largest chamber in Westeros after Harrenhal, more than a thousand maidens and their family members and servants overcrowded the Great Hall during the Maiden's Day Cattle Show. Small council sessions are sometimes held in the throne room. Maegor's Holdfast Maegor's Holdfast is a massive square fortress inside the heart of the Red Keep. The castle-within-a-castle is situated behind walls twelve feet thick and a dry moat lined with iron spikes. Maegor's Holdfast includes the royal apartments, and the king's bedchamber contains a canopied bed and twin hearths. The holdfast also contains the Queen's Ballroom. Tower of the Hand The Tower of the Hand contains the chambers of the Hand of the King and the Small Hall. The building has a solar and a garderobe, as well as tall windows. Below the tower is the chamber of the dragon mosaic. Other Buildings The council chamber hosts meetings of the small council. It contains a long table, at the head of which may sit the king. The chamber is richly furnished with Myrish carpet, a carved screen from the Summer Isles, and tapestries from Lys, Norvos, and Qohor. The chamber's door is flanked by two Valyrian sphinxes. The door can be guarded by a knight of the Kingsguard when the council is in session. White Sword Tower, located near Blackwater Bay, contains the chambers of the Kingsguard. The Maidenvault is a long, slate-roofed building located behind the royal sept. Its entry has two tall carved doors. The royal sept inside the Red Keep is located in front of the Maidenvault. There are seven altars, one for each of the aspects of the Faith of the Seven, and crystal windows are placed high in the walls. The castle also has a library. The Kitchen Keep is located at a courtyard across from the castle's main kitchen. Lord Gyles Rosby has spacious apartments above the Kitchen Keep, including a large bedchamber, a solar, a bath, a dressing room, and small adjoining chambers for servants. The Red Keep also has a small kitchen and a pig yard. The godswood of the Red Keep is an acre of elm, alder and black cottonwood trees that overlook the Blackwater Rush. The heart tree is a great oak with limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines. Princess Myrcella Baratheon has a garden at the Red Keep. The rookery is the home of the ravens used by maesters of the Citadel. The Grand Maester has his chambers beneath the rookery. The snug apartments of Lord Varys, the master of whisperers, are three windowless chambers with a hearth near the northern wall. Varys sleeps on a stone bed. Dungeon The Traitor's Walk is a pathway leading to a squat, half-round tower. The top floor holds cells for prisoners kept in a degree of comfort, such as knights or lordlings who might be ransomed, while the entrance to the dungeons sits on the ground floor. The other floors between contain rooms for the King's Justice, the Chief Gaoler, and the Lord Confessor. The dungeon entrance consists of a door of hammered iron and another door of splintered grey wood. King Maegor I Targaryen ordered that the dungeons below the squat tower have four levels. The uppermost level has cells with high narrow windows where common criminals are confined together. The second level has smaller, personal cells without windows for highborn captives. Torches in the halls cast light through the bars. The third level cells, the black cells, are smaller still and have doors of wood so that no light enters them, but they have not been used in recent years. The lowest level is used for torture. It is supposedly safer to go through the fourth level of the dungeons in darkness, because there are things one would not wish to see. The dungeon has twisting turnpike stairs and iron gates. A path from the lowest level leads to the chamber of the dragon mosaic below the Tower of the Hand and to the Blackwater Rush. Secret Passages The Red Keep and Aegon's High Hill have a network of secret passages and tunnels. King Maegor I Targaryen had them built to enable him to make a quick escape should his enemies ever trap him. The tunnels are supposedly full of traps. Some tunnels are of stone, while others are earth supported by timbers. Some of them are so small that a grown man must crawl through them. Some pass close to other rooms in the Red Keep, allowing a hidden person to eavesdrop on conversations. The bedchamber used by Lord Varys contains a mechanism that causes his stone slab of a bed to float up and reveal a hidden staircase. One secret passage leads from the bedchamber of the Tower of the Hand to the chamber of the dragon mosaic below. There is also a secret way to get out of the Red Keep onto the cliffs facing the sea. Narrow handholds, impossible to see from the ground, have been cut into the rock so one may climb down to a trail beside the Blackwater Rush. Another passage out of the Red Keep leads to a sewer that empties into the river. Maegor's Holdfast is the only building in the Red Keep that has no secret passages, as Maegor "wanted no rats in his own walls", except for one escape door that does not connect to any other passage in the Red Keep. Characters familiar with the secret passages include Maegor, Cheese, Lord Larys Strong, Varys and his little birds, and Lord Petyr Baelish.